


inswinger;

by thehandsingsweapon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Chasing Gold Zine, Football | Soccer, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 15:29:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15633516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehandsingsweapon/pseuds/thehandsingsweapon
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri is Japan's ace midfielder. Victor Nikiforov is the best soccer player on earth.They collide in the 2020 Games.Number’s Exclusive Interview with Katsuki Yuuri, Japan’s Star MidfielderSGN: What inspired you to pursue a career as a professional footballer?KY: My parents took me to the U-17 championships in Fukuoka when I was 11. I know people don’t pay as much attention to the juniors, but Victor Nikiforov scored three goals for the Russian side, and it really made me thinkwow, what would it be like to be that good, someday?SGN: Now you’re playing against your idol! Nikiforov’s one of the senior players for Russia and --KY: We got the same draw, yeah. Group A.(featuring four drabbles from the lead up to Chasing Gold, as well as the zine piece itself)





	1. prologue: christophe

There are a few days Christophe Giacometti recalls about his professional soccer career with great clarity. Things like phone calls: Karpisek, for example, calling to tell him about the Paris St. Germain offer, and how he’d finally made it big. He remembers the first day he showed up for training, and the way Victor Nikiforov – the best forward in Ligue 1 – showed up to shake hands. He’ll never forget hearing about his selection to represent Switzerland, this year, for the Games, and perhaps eventually in World Cup that are yet to come.

All of it has nearly been too good to be true. Maybe it still is.

Except he also remembers the gossip magazines. He remembers the first shirtless photos posted by a paparazzi on vacation on the Riviera.  _How long until Giacometti adds a model or an actress to the array of WAGs already sitting front and center at St. Germain games?_

WAG.  _Wives and Girlfriends._ Christophe has known since he was thirteen, kissing a boy in a football camp over the summer, that there’s no possibility of the latter, and therefore absolutely no chances of the former. 

It’s not that there aren’t gay footballers. It’s that they’re so far into the fucking closet that it takes an expedition crew to find them, even with the Ibiza party hits and the collective pretending  _not_ to have weekly appointments at high-end salons for sculpts, waxing, and the tanning that seems to be gradually transforming every pro-footballer into the same shade of bronze. Of course, Christophe has no room to judge: he’s been dying his hair, tanning, and waxing ever since he turned 16. It’s a sport, of course, but it’s a sport that throws around a lot of money, and that probably explains Victor’s magenta convertible.

In retrospect, the convertible really  _ought_  to have clued him in.

Christophe decides that he’s too busy to take the question seriously, stumbles into beds, evades boyfriends, solves the problem of what to do with his empty girlfriend seats by frequently gifting them to family and friends instead. He keeps people guessing.

For a while he doesn’t realize that little by little, this is how it happens: how he hides who he is, how he avoids causing a stir, how he adds himself to the ranks of the players who are in the closet.

Life has other plans.

At present, Christophe is three years into living in Paris with an on-again, off-again, undefinable sort of fling going on with a photographer named Mathieu. Except that’s not really true, is it?

When Christophe isn’t thinking about being the second-best forward on the St. Germain squad, chasing after Nikiforov, his thoughts drift: he thinks about the subtle quirk of Mathieu’s smile, and the softness of his curls, and the dangerous things that Christophe knows have happened in either of their bedrooms while Mathieu’s camera still runs. In a way, he’s playing with fire: anyone else sitting on that sort of evidence would have leaked it to the press already, and collected an enormous payout, but Mathieu doesn’t seem eager to cash in.

Like everything else, Victor Nikiforov throws this into stark relief, for no other reason than Christophe has gotten into the habit of throwing big, expensive parties that feature a lot of booze and decisions that other people might regret. This is how he wakes up one morning: him, Mathieu, Victor plus Christophe’s hangover, Mathieu’s hangover, and Victor’s hangover. Christophe watches, silent, while Victor awkwardly extricates himself and dresses, fumbling through excuses:

“I … I guess I had too much to drink? I’ll leave you and your uh … your boyfriend to it.”

Christophe and Mathieu speak at the same time. What Mathieu says, looking at Victor with those all-seeing eyes that Christophe’s a little in love with is:

“We’re not going to tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

What Christophe says is this: 

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Mathieu’s smile stretches a little at the edges sometimes.

This is one of those moments, Christophe standing in his kitchen trying to nurse a hangover while the world's best soccer player tugs his pants back on. 

Victor still leaves; Mathieu shrugs it off, already putting together his morning coffee. “He’s the one who drives the pink convertible, yeah? I thought that you knew.”

Christophe wonders what else Victor Nikiforov hides behind his impeccably crafted public image. He’s spent these three years being a friend, but there are layers there that he isn’t meant to uncover. He hasn’t followed Victor out to the curb, for instance. Mathieu is the one still standing in his kitchen, and Christophe is still trying to process his many mistakes: how a photographer knew more about Victor in the course of ten hours than he’s ever learned in three years, how it is that he’s just put his foot in the mouth over something Mathieu himself has never asked for, never confirmed, never denied. 

How he doesn’t know what to do with himself, now that Mathieu’s attached to his flat in this way, witnessed by another human being.

What Christophe says is this:

“Come to one of my games.”

What he means is this:

_Come to all of my games._


	2. christmas: yuuri

The date is December 8th, and Japan’s top midfielder, Katsuki Yuuri, has just completed one of his most important rituals.

This is to say he’s endured the complex process of acquiring any magazine that has an interview with the world’s best forward, Victor Nikiforov, regardless of what language it’s in, and telling absolutely nobody about it. This month, it’s Russia’s edition of GQ: he’s seen grainy pictures on the internet of the cover; scanned early English translations on four different twitter accounts.  _Home for the Holidays: Russian Stars Nikiforov, Popovich, and Plisetsky on preparing for this summer’s Tokyo Games_ seems to be the general gist, and it looks like a piece that exists primarily for the sole purpose of letting each of the three men it features stand around and look devastatingly handsome in a variety of fashionable suits.

Unfortunately, Japan’s top midfielder, Katsuki Yuuri, has the world’s worst luck sometimes, and the entire Japanese team finds out about the depths of his depravity on a train from Fukuoka to Tokyo. As he reaches to stow his backpack above the seats of the high-speed train he, Nishigori, and Minami are all taking back to training camp, the train starts out of the station, knocking him off balance and sending the contents of his bag flying. The GQ Magazine lands right on Takeshi’s head, and his wife, who is coincidentally Katsuki Yuuri’s best friend from high school, picks it up and promptly dissolves into quiet giggles.

That alone might have kept the secret safe, except for the presence of Yuuri’s Kashima teammate, traveling with them back to Tokyo. “What is it?” An over-eager Minami Kenjirou wants to know, already scrambling to help Yuuri pick up his scattered belongings, ready to leap to his defense.

“Yuuri’s got another Victor Nikiforov interview to add to his collection.”

And, well: when it comes to Katsuki Yuuri, Minami Kenjirou, Sweeper, just can’t keep his mouth shut. “Wow, Yuuri. I know you said he inspires you, but can you even read Russian?”

Takeshi looks between them both for a split-second, trying and failing to keep a straight face and to preserve the fox-pup innocence of their youngest teammate. Everything Nishigori does is big, even when he fails, so of course he promptly howls laughter.

“I am never inviting you all back to the Onsen,” Yuuri declares later, his face still blossoming various shades of pink. Nishigori simply crows that there’s nothing for it; Yuuri’s parents love Yuuko, of course, and so the door will always be open for her. Yuuri’s the one who introduced her to Takeshi, who’s boisterous and bullish and curiously likable; a loyal friend when they play on the national team and a strong rival when they play apart in J-League. He’s a fullback for Urawa, and any game played with or against him inevitably helps make Yuuri stronger.

They’ll need it this year. This year’s Games are hosted by Japan, after all, and the Russian squad has never been better.

Yuuri finally lets himself savor the article later, when he’s alone in a hotel room in Tokyo, waiting on the rest of the team to arrive for a week of training. The spread was shot in Paris, where Victor plays, and it’s a gorgeous piece, even if Yuuri can’t read a word of it. Georgi Popovich is cast in a moody profile, walking alongside the Seine through a very thin layer of fresh snow in a dramatic, plum-colored peacoat. He stares wistfully after the blurry figure of a woman walking away from him on that one bridge they keep telling people not to put locks on, blue eyes soft, snow dotting his ridiculous hair. It’s a perfect contradiction to Yuri Plisetsky’s main shot, fashion deconstructed in a wild, punky suit, lounging with teenage irreverence on what’s meant to be a pew in the back of some old, ornate church. There are a handful of shots of the three of them together, exchanging snowballs in their expensive suits, but it’s Victor’s two-page spread that cuts deep into Yuuri’s bones: a shot taken at nighttime as he strolls alone through some Christmas market, elegant features lit up with fairy lights. They have him carrying a lantern, a not-so-subtle reminder that Victor’s had the honor of running the torch before, and he’s holding it up, looking away from the camera and off into the distance.

 _Longing_ is the word Yuuri manages to assign to that look, but it’s really in a way that defies description.  _He looks hungry,_ his mother might say, bustling through the kitchens at Yu-Topia, and even though Victor’s wearing the slightest curve of a smile, Yuuri imagines strange things about the depths of his mercurial eyes.

 _Starving,_ he thinks, in response to his mother’s imagined voice.

Yuuri doesn’t know what the best footballer in the whole world might possibly want in such a way that could make him look like that. And it’s stupid to think too long about these photoshoots; no doubt Victor’s just putting on a show. He’s very good at that.

Nonetheless, as winter sleet falls in Tokyo and lures Katsuki Yuuri to sleep, he thinks:  _whatever it is that you want, Victor, I hope you get it._


	3. new years' eve: victor

The date is December 31st, and there’s no holiday on earth that Victor Nikiforov hates like New Years’ Eve. He’s the best footballer on earth; what good are resolutions?  _Maybe I’ll bring home a gold medal,_ he’d quipped, offhand, in another one of those ‘stand around in a suit’ set of interviews for Russian GQ, and then he’d winked at the camera and flashed his trademark smile. 

Then the editor picked out one of the serious ones instead; Victor thinks he looks like a lost Peter Pan, wandering through the Latin Quarter.  _Nonsense,_ the editor wrote.  _You look distinguished._ Victor thinks that’s codespeak for  _older,_ which is as good a reminder as any that this year’s Games will be his last and that he’s got maybe one more World Cup under his feet, and then at some point there’s going to be a new generation of players who rise up and replace him, people like Plisetsky, chomping at the bit for their chance to surpass him in the history books.

He knows how it goes. 

He was once the disrupter himself.

Christophe took one look at the spread when it came out and whistled  _chéri, we need to get you laid._ Victor distinctly recalls a few things: one, he remembers telling Christophe to go fuck himself (‘ _I let Mathieu do that, darling, you know how good he is at it’)_ ; two, he knows nothing good ever comes out of Christophe’s New Years’ Eve plans. He’s woken up before in Christophe’s flat, back in the days when he and Mathieu still had an open arrangement, hungover and compromised, dancing the strange dance of the  _trois_ in the ménage à trois, extricating himself from Christophe’s ridiculous, thousand thread-count sheets. 

Christophe plays alongside him, quite literally, for St. Germain, and against him for the Swiss side, and they’re both professionals. It’s never been up for discussion. Neither, for that matter, have been any of Victor’s other dalliances, all of them necessarily brief. He jokes that it’s because he’s married to the game.

It isn’t because he’s married to the game.

His body’s an exotic vacation other people take from time to time, a place they tend to visit to say  _I fucked Victor Nikiforov once,_ or a luxury resort they’re trying to get a piece of: with the kinds of bonuses Victor gets for his performance in the league, plenty of people have looked his way and seen a paycheck in the place where a heart’s supposed to be.

Maybe he’s over-cautious.

Or maybe he’s world-weary.

_Kissing anyone this New Years’, Victor?_

“No,” he says, and he leaves early, lets himself into a high-end, Parisian flat well before midnight. Makkachin is the perfect excuse; everyone in the world knows that Victor Nikiforov could afford fifty different dog-walkers without blinking an eye but at the end of the day he’s still the one who needs to be home because  _Makkachin_ is waiting. 

For a moment, as the new year turns unobserved and unremarked upon, he wonders whether or not this is the year he ought to come to terms with it, all of it: with his isolation miles ahead of his nearest competition in the professional leagues, with how  _tired_ he is of the rich playboy circuit so many of the other footballers make, spending their off-seasons in tropical islands snorkeling off of yachts. He remembers a time when the whole world didn’t know his name; thinks back on his first kiss, stolen under some ancient, beaten-up bleachers back in St. Petersburg.

It’d be nice to go someplace quiet and simple.

Nice to have someone to go off the map with.

He forgets about all of it until the Opening Ceremony, something like seven months later. Trust Christophe to arrange for a post-event rager with what feels like most of the international footballers who’re due to play the group rounds in Tokyo; these things just seem to come together with his presence, as if summoned by an angelic bat of hazel eyes and the world’s most idle, mischievous smile. 

One of the Japanese athletes is very, very drunk, although Victor’s got enough self-awareness to concede that he’s a little bit charmed by it: by the not-so-subtle streak of red over the midfielder’s nose and cheekbones, by the softness of his eyes or the adorable, rumbled state of his hair. “Hey.  _Hey._ ”He remembers the man’s name is Yuuri, which is a little funny, for some reason, now that Victor’s got a few beers in him. Plisetsky has already tried and failed to stake his claim on the name; Victor’s not quite sure what the means of defeat were, but he knows Yuri’s sulking it off back at the dormitories.  _This_ Yuuri is trying to get his attention, which he’s had for some time now, largely because Victor can’t quite figure out why he never seems to leave Victor’s line of sight, and what it is about him that makes Victor think of candlelight, and the smell of clean laundry, and the sensation of going home. “Did you ever get what you wanted?”

“What?”

“Back in December,”slurs Yuuri Katsuki, whose smile is just subtly crooked enough that Victor’s caught by a momentary urge to try to kiss it straight. “You did a photoshoot,”he says. He taps Victor on the chest, and leans in. Victor’s done a lot of different photoshoots, too many to place, really. “You looked …”

Victor braces himself. He knows what comes next: compliments, usually, and the nature of them almost always tells him exactly what people want. Depending on his mood he slots himself in or out of those roles, but he hasn’t been in the mood for a very long time and he’s certainly not in the mood now.

“You looked  _wistful,”_ says Yuuri finally. “You looked like you wanted something.” And then he smiles, and it’s artless, devastating, earnest. “Did you ever get it?”

Back in the village, hours later, Yuuri Katsuki passes out drunk before he can remember anything they say to each other.

Victor Nikiforov, on the other hand, remembers every minute with perfect, startling clarity.

It will be nearly another year before he tells Yuuri about it, before he can smile with his whole heart, and fill in the little blanks of Yuuri’s Tokyo games experience, color it in.  _You wanted to know if I ever got what I wanted,_ he’ll say, then, when they’re sitting together on a beach in Yuuri’s hometown, a place where nobody recognizes Victor and everyone recognizes Yuuri. 

_The answer is yes._

_I got everything I ever wanted._


	4. inswinger.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is the actual zine fic ♡

**_Number’s_ ** **Exclusive Interview with Katsuki Yuuri, Japan’s Star Midfielder**

> **SGN:** What inspired you to pursue a career as a professional footballer?
> 
> **KY:** My parents took me to the U-17 championships in Fukuoka when I was 11. I know people don’t pay as much attention to the juniors, but Victor Nikiforov scored three goals for the Russian side, and it really made me think  _ wow, what would it be like to be that good, someday? _
> 
> **SGN:** Now you’re playing against your idol! Nikiforov’s one of the senior players for Russia and -- 
> 
> **KY:** We got the same draw, yeah. Group A.

 

**Text Messages, Phichit Chulanont**

> omg YUURI 
> 
> ur gonna jersey swap w nikiforov rite 
> 
> and then never wash it?

 

The truth is, Victor Nikiforov has haunted every stage of Yuuri’s career. Yuuri remembers him flitting across the junior league fields, long hair streaming behind him like an unfurling banner. Yuuri has perfect, complete recall of the shocking moment in Victor’s U-20 days when a player from Spain wrapped that otherworldly platinum ponytail around his fist and yanked Victor down to the grass, earning a prompt ejection and record-setting suspension. Yuuri owns two different copies of the subsequent  _ FourFourTwo  _ exclusive that came after, featuring a long interview and multiple photos taken from a barber’s shop with metamorphosis underway. Uncomfortable teenage years were spent wrestling with the solemn look in Victor’s too-blue-to-be-human eyes, staring down at the remnants of a silver ponytail on the floor. As though Victor had been one person the moment before the snip of the scissors, and emerged a different one after. Yuuri remembers the day Victor was called up to play for the pros in Paris, and, until his own debut in Kashima, he owned every single one of Victor’s kits, each one of them still pinned to the walls of his room back in Hasetsu.

Now, it’s the morning of the first match he’ll ever play against Victor, and disaster is rippling through Yuuri’s skin, flooding his synapses. This is his hometown games. He hasn’t slept. Not a wink. Yuuri has learned to consider anxiety as the second voice inside of his own head, the one that sounds like him, but isn’t. Sometimes that other voice is louder, more convincing. Today is one of those days.  _ You’re going to let everyone down. Nishigori, Minami, your family. Yourself. Victor’s not even going to look at you.  _

It’s no surprise, then, when Japan falls to Russia in the first game, even with a pair of goals against Popovich. The Russians are all good, and they’ve got an upstart Striker who’s going to evolve into a real threat someday, but it’s Victor who cuts through all of the Japan team’s strategies, who invalidates all of their tactics merely by existing. Victor dissects their plans and makes it look effortless.  _ He’s perfect,  _ whispers the treacherous voice.  _ How could you ever compare? _

Victor is more beautiful in person than he is in any magazine, even sweaty, exhausted, and red-faced from ninety minutes of running, and Yuuri hates himself for even thinking about it in the midst of this loss. He can’t  _ not _ think about it when Victor tugs off his kit, exposing every flawless, chiseled muscle, the subject of all of Yuuri’s most embarrassing fantasies.  _ You don’t deserve this,  _ Yuuri thinks, and in turning away he leaves behind a bewildered Nikiforov, and promptly makes himself into a meme:

 

**katsugoals.tumblr.com gifset:**

> katsuki yuuri stonewalls victor nikiforov jersey swap    
>  #tokyo2020 #2020games #goals #YOU’RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE

 

Nonetheless, the Japanese team arrives into quarterfinals a little worse for wear after a draw against South Korea and a narrow, last-minute victory over the Czech Republic. In that time, Russia goes without a loss, and Victor Nikiforov does something like a dozen different interviews in three different languages. 

There’s a game to win against China soon, and even the familiar sounds of Takeshi’s snores aren’t enough to settle Yuuri’s frazzled nerves the night before the match. The clock reads a cold 02:47 when he scoops up a football and heads out into an open spot of grass between the quads of the Tokyo village. A few figures move about -- this place never really seems to sleep, not completely, in the same way that the torch never goes out -- but he’s left to his own devices, at least. Yuuri knows a lot of freestyler juggling tricks, things he taught himself to pass the terror of the waiting time between games at tournaments on his junior club team, and he bounces the ball up to a chest stall and then bumps it up to his forehead. On a whim, he lets it fall back to his feet, and then kicks it up in one of his favorite tricks, a neat little crossover with a 360 spin. 

“ _ Wow _ ,” someone chirps behind him, and Yuuri freezes, because he  _ knows _ that accent, has heard this word breathed in exactly this fashion in a dozen different interviews. He turns slowly to face none other than Victor Nikiforov, who is inexplicably awake at this hellish hour, and somehow still smiling about it, even if he’s swaying on his feet a little bit. Celebrating, probably: Russia’s already played their quarterfinal match, and they’ve advanced into the semis. “... Can I join you?”

“Sure,” mumbles Yuuri, who taps the ball over in Victor’s direction.  _ You just passed a football to the best forward on earth,  _ thinks the part of Yuuri’s brain that still belongs to his twelve-year-old self, the one that can never seem to reconcile the facts of his own life. Victor responds with a bright, charming laugh, and bumps the ball up, misses his own knee. Yuuri watches as he trots after it, dribbling back until he’s in front of Yuuri -- too close, in fact, so close that Yuuri doesn’t process that they’re nearly touching until Victor jabs him in the sternum with a finger.

“Yuuri,” Victor Nikiforov whines, which reduces Yuuri to a pool of nerves: Victor  _ knows his name,  _ and worse, the way he says it feels intimate and personal, leaves Yuuri resisting a shiver. “... tried to give you my jersey,” Victor is saying, syllables just a little slurred while he walks his fingers up the center of Yuuri’s t-shirt. “You walked off. So now you owe me a jersey.” With his free hand, Victor taps his mouth, and then flashes his megawatt, super-star smile. “You will fix it in finals, yes? When we play again.”

“I-if we make the finals,” Yuuri stammers, while Victor fixes him with such a look of displeasure that Yuuri nearly folds over in apology.

“When,” Victor corrects, sternly. Then he sways again, steadying himself with a hand against Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri smells -- well, it’s alcohol, some kind of sweet liquor. “Sorry,” he huffs against Yuuri’s ear. “Bit drunk. Shots with Georgi.” To Yuuri’s great surprise, he proceeds to plant himself on the grass near Yuuri’s feet and stretches out onto his back. “Sit, sit.”

Yuuri sits, because he can’t imagine telling  _ Victor Nikiforov  _ no. “You went out somewhere?”

“No.” Victor points, vaguely, back towards the village. “Up there. Georgi’s passed out.”

“Surely someone asked.”

“People always do,” mutters Victor, with a subtle note of dissatisfaction that lodges itself somewhere in Yuuri’s chest like a splinter. The idea that Victor, of all people, might ever be unhappy, has never once occurred to him, except in the haunting looks Victor sometimes flashes a camera, things Yuuri always assumed were simply manufactured for the shoots themselves. Victor tugs on his wrist, not unkindly, more suggestion than demand, and snaps him out of his thoughts. “Lie down,” he says, and perhaps he also senses the way Yuuri’s gone tense at the very idea, because he also says  _ relax.  _ When Yuuri gives in, the brilliance of his smile comes back at full strength. “Have you ever seen the movie  _ Chariots of Fire? _ ” Victor asks, folding his hands behind his head. Yuuri can’t say that he has. “I like movies,” Victor babbles idly. He’s a chatty drunk. Yuuri sympathizes: he knows he’s worse by far, which is why he tries not to drink. Out past the edge of his control is something wild and reckless, and drunk Yuuri always makes what seems like the best choice at the time, only to discover it’s actually the worst choice in the cold light of morning. “There’s a part in it I didn’t understand for a long time. One of the characters says  _ God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. _ ”

Yuuri wishes he understood what he’s supposed to do with this story. “... Okay?”

“Yuuri,” Victor huffs, offended. “Don’t you know you were made to run like that?”  _ What,  _ Yuuri breathes, and Victor fixes him with a long stare. “Finals,” he says, and he makes Yuuri repeat it.  _ Finals. _ Yuuri can almost believe it. 

They lay like that for a long time. It’s surprisingly comfortable, like finding some place that he was always meant to be.

 

**Recap: Russian men collect gold medal in thrilling overtime finish to men’s final**

> After playing to a 2-2 draw through 120 minutes, Russia and Japan went to a shootout in last night’s gold medal match. After two early goals by Nikiforov and Plisetsky, the Japanese side wrestled a tie with points from Minami and Katsuki. Victor Nikiforov secured the gold medal for the Russian side with the final shot in the first series of five, giving Russia a 3-2 win at the last possible minute.

 

“Give me your number,” says Victor Nikiforov at the celebratory brunch organized for the two teams, the day after the match. He says it the same way he’d said  _ can I have your jersey now, Yuuri Katsuki,  _ the way he’d beamed down from the podium and still offered an incredibly heartfelt  _ congratulations _ . Yuuri gives it to him, and then finds himself being handed a phone rather urgently from his coach. Victor is still standing there, curiosity alive in his bright blue eyes, when the conversation ends and Yuuri hangs up, evidently looking as dumbfounded as he feels. “Who was that?”

“... A scout for Munich,” mumbles Katsuki Yuuri, part star-struck teenager, part exhausted midfielder still feeling all 120 minutes of burn from overtime.  _ This is your life. This is your life now. _

A life where Victor Nikiforov smiles at him and talks to him easily, like an equal.

“Munich, hmm?” Victor taps his mouth and then smiles a long, slow smile. “Good,” he adds, as swiftly and surely as he scores. Something flutters in Yuuri’s stomach. “We’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”

 


	5. epilogue: yuri

The  **first time**  Yuri Plisetsky really meets Yuuri Katsuki, outside of Christophe's stupid party, it’s in the group rounds at the Tokyo Games, where the Japanese midfielder has the obnoxious tendency to be  _fucking everywhere._ It makes Yuri glad he gets off the field late in the game with a substitution; he’s tired of running up against their big, bullish defender, tired of the Sweeper they’ve got in front of goal, a fox-toothed kid with a red streak in his hair that Yuri remembers from juniors. He’s just generally  _tired_.   
  
As the kids say, Yuri is  _one fast motherfucker,_ which is one of many reasons why he’s Russia’s striker. Katsuki, though: Katsuki has the uncanny ability to show up where the ball’s going to be. When they beat Japan, the only good news about Katsuki is he turns Victor Nikiforov into a meme for a hot minute by accidentally refusing his jersey, but Yuri thinks  _thank God, that’s that._

The  **second time** Yuri Plisetsky meets Yuuri Katsuki is in the gold medal game. He takes back every nice thing he’s thought about Yuuri since their first game, every time he’s gotten to laugh at the gifset over bewildered looking Victor. Katsuki is making his life  _hard._ Victor is not helpful with his  _it’s the games, Yuri, what did you expect_ bullshit. When it’s finally over, long after the medal ceremony and the post-game interviews and everything else, Yuri Plisetsky faceplants into bed and lies to himself. He’s going to sleep for a week. In reality, it’s the Olympics, and he’s made a new friend from Kazakhstan, and there’s too much shit to do and see to stay holed up in the dorms. He’s heard good things about Tokyo fashion. If he wasn’t absolutely convinced that Katsuki had anything other than dumpster fire fashion sense, he’d probably ask him for tips. There will be no asking of Kenjirou Minami. Anyone who does  _that_ to his hair is already a lost cause, in Yuri’s book. 

The  **third time** Yuri Plisetsky meets Yuuri Katsuki is in Paris, France. Yuri is bored, tired of waiting for training with Zenit St. Petersburg to resume, tired of listening to his coaches, his trainers, his agents. Visiting Georgi or anyone else on the Russian team seems  _boring._ The selection process for vacation went something like this:  _Victor lives in Paris and makes entire fucking dumptrucks worth of money and I bet he has a spare bedroom._ Out of everyone Yuri knows, Victor’s the most likely to have a flat so big that Yuri doesn’t even have to talk to him while he plays houseguest. When he shows up in Paris, nobody comes to the airport to pick him up, and when Yuri catches a taxi to Victor’s apartment and buzzes down at the front desk, Victor seems preoccupied. When he comes downstairs, he’s a bit embarrassed, reluctant, more than somewhat inclined to suggest neighboring hotels. “Dude. Did you fucking forget I was coming?”

“I … I have another house guest,” Victor mumurs. 

“Don’t you, like, own the entire top floor of this place?”

“Well, yeah.” Victor shrugs like it’s tablestakes, somehow, that he’s got a luxury flat that overlooks the Seine and parking to boot. “You just. It’s fine. Try to be nice.”

“Look, I can be nice to your family or whatever or who is here,” says Yuri Plisetsky, who just wants a place to put his bag before he zips back out for some sightseeing. 

“My ... friend,” Victor clarifies unhelpfully while they ride the elevator. Of course. Victor lives in a building that’s so luxe he has a private elevator.

And when they arrive, finally, there is Yuuri Katsuki, just like at the Games: already waiting at the place Yuri thought he was going to alone. 

Yuuri Katsuki looks like a deer in headlights.

“Jesus fuck,” says Yuri, to Yuuri, “It’s  _you?”_


End file.
